


These Violent Delights

by wolftrapvirginia



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6370204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolftrapvirginia/pseuds/wolftrapvirginia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon-divergent from Season 4 finale. Toby gets paroled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Violent Delights

As I walk out, there is sun shining in my eyes and the sound of a heavy gate moving to the side, opening the world back to me. Suddenly, nothing else matters: nothing that came before, nothing that will come after. 

 

Sister Pete says something not thinking about this place, ever again, and I feel a tingle of pain as my fingers dig deeper into my palm. This isn’t one of those dreams I had been having all week; this is reality. The sensations I’ve been suppressing threaten to rush to the surface in an instant: the warmth of Said’s hug, the wishful sparks in Pete’s eyes, an unfolding knot in my stomach. 

 

So I nod, and I try to give her my sincerest smile, but my mouth is too dry, lips too trembling.

 

“I want you to go on, and never think about this place again,” She repeats. 

 

On the other side of the gate (the one with infinite possibilities, and trees, and the bluest of skies), Katherine stands, waiting. She is a wearing a light brown pantsuit, and she is smiling the way people out there smile all the time: openly, kindly. 

 

And then I know, I know exactly what is wrong with this picture; and I squint into the sun, I smile too, but knowingly. I can almost feel the bitter taste of a martini in my mouth, or a brush of a heroin high, but _no._ There is yet another addiction I need to get closer to, and this time I am in full control of my actions.

 

I turn to Pete, and give her a small hug. 

 

“Thank you, Sister.” I say simply, “But the road awaits.” And then I sign out, and the hack’s eyes follow me out of the gate.

 

As I come up closer to Katherine, I notice my brother’s car behind her in the first row of the parking lot. I stop, take a deep breath in: I smell mostly pine, and Katherine too-sweet perfume, as she closes the distance between us.

 

“I see Angus brought a car,” I note, and she nods enthusiastically. 

 

Katherine’s eyes are glowing, but I look past her, at the sky. It is deep-deep blue, and the sun reflects off car keys in her right hand. “Where would you like to go?” 

 

“I need you to drive me up to Massachusetts’ state border.” I say calmly. “I’ll give you money for the train back.”

 

She pulls back, and _BAM_ : surprise, anger, betrayal, all readable on her face. She should probably work on that poker face, if she wants to deal with cons, a voice in my head says, and I almost giggle.  

 

“Because I’m going to get a new license there. It’s easier to reinstate a license in another state, than in one the crime was originally committed.” The passenger door is opened, so I get in.

 

“What the hell is in Massachusetts? You’re not going to see your daughter, your _family_ first? Jesus Christ, Tobias!” She starts Angus’ dark blue BMW.

 

“Holly is still adjusting, and I’ll be with her as soon as I come back.” I roll the window down all the way, and submit all the thoughts to the wind, as it digs through my too-long hair. 

 

Katherine is fine; she would fit perfectly into my earlier fantasies about being released. She is a lawyer, but with a soft spot, she is probably good with kids; for a minute I let my thoughts to roll into a pretty picture of her, Holly and me on a beach somewhere. For a minute, with the pure, unfiltered air in my lungs for the first time in five fucking years, I imagine having sex with her, and then I think of Gen, I think of my previous life, of misery and dullness of all those years, and there is bile rising up in my throat.  _No thank you_. If I am mad, I would rather be mad. 

 

***  
  


As soon as I get behind the wheel, I change BMW’s mirrors and put some radio on. The feeling should scare me, surely, but it only adds to the quiet  In Angus’ glovebox I find his old RayBans, tortoise, with a green tint. I put them on, enjoying the feeling of looking onto things out of expensive lenses, as I drive out onto the highway.

 

I don’t recognize half of the songs on the radio, my newly cut hair feels way too short, the highway is dusty, and for a minute I imagine what Said would tell me if could see me right now. _Blah blah blah, Allah looking down on love, blah blah, — Beecher this won’t end well for you, Keller won’t end well for you…_ Not that Said wasn’t entirely wrong about the latter _. Keller KellerKellerKeller…_ It starts going on an endless loop, Sister Pete’s and Kareem’s voices, fragments of conversations, and then there is a flood of information, distracting me from the road: cutting words, hot kisses, gashes of blood, stabbings, and I swallow sharply _. STOP._

 

Closer to Boston, I buy a new suit. It’s navy blue, and not at all itchy. It’s never seen the inside of a prison laundry (or any laundry, it’s dry-clean only). I pull the tie off, leaving the shirt unbuttoned. 

 

As signs for Cedar Junction start to appear, I smile to myself, in an attempt to temporarily calm my demons. I smile, like I’m a teenager keeping a cool secret. 

 

Cedar Junction building is all white, with a giant flag on top. MAXIMUM SECURITY, it says at the entrance of a visitor’s parking lot. I leave sunglasses in the car, and go in before a part of me becomes too terrified to move an inch. 

 

My knees are trembling as they go through my wallet and keys, and whatever else I brought in, but my face is calm.

 

_What to give a man who has everything_ , it says on Angus’ postcard in the backseat of the BMW. And what to give a man who has nothing, then?  

 

They ask who I am here to see, and I stop myself just in time from grinning maniacally. _They don’t know,_ nobody here _fucking knows_ , nobody in here ever saw us kiss in the laundry room, or try to kill each other in the middle of Em City. 

 

This is the moment it stops being all in my head, and becomes real. I can almost hear the planet come to a halt. “Christopher Keller,” I say out loud, and my voice is clear and ringing off the walls in my head. The demons claw at my feet, as I step back through the gate, but this isn’t my crime: nor is this madness, nor addiction. I just love him, that’s all.

 

_With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls: For stony limits cannot hold love out_. As the visitor lounge waits for the prisoners to come in, I close my eyes and allow the film behind my eyelids flood through my head: sparks of everything Keller, everything I ever buried of him, his scent, his eyes, his lips, his voice, and as I open them back, he is standing in front of me. In the flesh, with a cocky grin. 

 

“Nice suit,” he finally drawls, still standing. I know what he wants me to do, so I rise up from the uncomfortable plastic chair, and look into his eyes.  

 

I count, _One, Two, Three…._

 

“Toby,” he says in _that_ voice, and I pull him into a searing kiss. 

 

This is the language we both speak better than any other: his fingers ripping at the collar of my shirt, how soft his lips are on mine, just like every time before, rough and sweet, hot and soft, angry and willing. I want to cry, and kill someone. I feel free.

 

“You shouldn’t have come. I told you, you shouldn’t look back.” Keller whispers, in a very un-Keller fashion. He tries so hard to be good for me, but this isn’t a phone conversation in Sister Pete’s office. His pupils dilate as I put hand onto his, and his pulse rises, as I slide my knee up to meet his thigh. It’s like a heroin needle trying to be dull enough not to pierce the skin. 

 

I want the veneer of niceness off. I want my Keller back. 

 

“I’m not, Chris. I’m looking into the future,” As I use his first name, the corners of his mouth curl up infinitesimally. It has always been a part of our usual game. “Next, I’ll be working to overturn your sentence through dad’s firm. I’d rather you drop the martyr act.”

 

He takes my hand, palm up, and kisses it. “When did you get out? You look hot, but also tired.”

 

“Five days ago.” 

 

“Five days ago? Toby, you should be in fuckin’ Vegas! Or, or I dunno, lying around somewhere in South Beach, drinking coconut juice!” 

 

“And yet, I’m right here. Asking why you haven’t replied to any of my letters.” I catch him staring at my neck, where I purposely left a few shirt buttons open. 

 

“I wanted you to get out and live your life, man,” Keller looks back up, eyes meeting eyes, and I feel a familiar rush of electricity all over my back. “I really did. But Toby, I can’t fucking do that ok, I can’t think of spending the rest of my life without you.” 

 

“Then write back.” 

 

I give him the small box I brought in with me, small and burgundy red. He smirks while opening it, his usual confidence-filled attitude crawling back onto his handsome face.

 

He is definitely surprised at the contents. It’s the tie from the suit I bought: it’s light blue, silky, nothing special. “A tie? Is someone’s funeral coming up?”

 

I move as close as we can get in this stupid little room, with the hacks watching from outside the door, and I press my lips to his right ear. “When you get out, I want you to tie me up with it. I’ll let you do whatever you want to me, Keller. I want you to look at it every day, and think about that, and not get shanked in this place or sent to Death Row, because I really need you to be safe.”  

 

He breathes out my name; it’s a vow, it’s a sacrament, but his eyes are full of lust and madness, just like mine. There is nothing holy about us, we’re Dante’s pilgrims, making our way through hell of life. We kiss again, deeply and slowly, and Chris sneaks a touch over my thin pants, stroking me. 

 

This is my Hell, this is my Heaven. Nothing before, and nothing after. 

He is all I want, he is all I cannot have, but I will scratch and scream and fight until I can show him how green the trees are along the highway, and how I missed him every day since he’s been gone. 

 

 


End file.
